


flowers in the concrete

by paddingtonfan69



Series: dumbasses in love 2020 [2]
Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/F, Fluff, and i live by that, i am apparently incapable of writing sterling's pov without making her a horndog, lil bit o sexual content, love!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27216826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paddingtonfan69/pseuds/paddingtonfan69
Summary: “Besides,” April says, lowering her voice to a whisper, seemingly ignoring how Sterling is deeply unwell, “Twelfth Night has a delightful amount of lesbian subtext. It can be fully viewed as Olivia realizing why the only man she ever loved was not, in fact, a man, and what that implies about the constrictions of the era-”“I love you.”April’s eyebrows shoot to her forehead. Sterling could die. Maybe she will. Maybe the linoleum floor will swallow her up right now. Anything would be preferable to accidentally blurting out that she loves (loves?!) someone who she spent a week making out with over a year ago, and has only been on speaking terms with for the past two weeks.
Relationships: April Stevens/Sterling Wesley
Series: dumbasses in love 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986961
Comments: 42
Kudos: 382





	flowers in the concrete

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the same universe as my fic [Hard Ask.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26607943) The general vibe of it will make sense w/out reading that one first, but in case you're like "why is future April so into politics?" whoo boy I have 22k words of context for you! 
> 
> Title from "Love is a Wild Thing" by Kacey Musgraves, because of these two and Kacey, of course. (Plus one time I saw two lovely gays get engaged when she played that song at a concert and it was beautiful! whew remember concerts??)

Sterling’s excuse the first time is that she’s ten and hungry and Blair stole the cookie out of her lunchable, which she was saving for last, and now it’s gone. Forever.

“I will kill her,” she says out loud. 

“Sororicide at lunch?”

She turns to see April, grinning at her across the lunch table. Sterling has no idea what the word she just said means; April knows big words that go over even Sterling’s (who almost always gets 100s on her vocab tests, thank you very much) head. But Sterling smiles back anyway. It’s nice; sometimes it seems like their friends are always following Blair, sucked in by her energy and loud voice and the way she radiates cool in a way Sterling hasn’t learned how to do yet. But never April. April always watches her and only her, and it always makes things a tiny bit brighter. 

April roots in her backpack now, pulling out something wrapped in plastic and handing it to Sterling, who just stares. April watches her then shifts a little uncomfortably. 

“My mom made brownies last night. I thought, well, you just threatened to kill your sister over a stale cookie, so you might want one. It’s okay if not, though.”

Sterling looks her dead in the eyes and says, “I love you.”

April turns very pink. Sterling is too caught up in a brownie and friendship and the warm feeling that settles in her bones to pay it any mind. 

Her excuse the second time is that she’s angry and thirteen and there’s this terrible new guy in school who keeps writing her disgusting notes during class that make her want to throw up a little. 

“I have a boyfriend,” she tells him sternly after Algebra.

“Yeah, where is he?” the guy leers. 

Sterling swallows. Both Luke and Blair are still in Pre-Algebra, and suddenly she feels so very alone with this guy who smells like Axe body spray and looks down at her legs in a way that makes her grind her teeth. 

“Just stop,” she tells him, really trying to be a nice Christian girl, but even Jesus would probably want to punch this guy. 

“Oh are you gonna make me?'' he asks.

“Hey, Loser!”

Both Sterling and Creepy Guy turn to see April in the doorway of math class, her text book clenched to her chest as she stalks up to both of them. For a second, Sterling isn’t sure which one of them she’s talking to, but then she rounds on the guy. 

“Didn’t you ever learn that ‘no means no,’ or was your skull too thick to process basic information?”

The guy holds both his hands up. “Whoa, we were just talking.”

April just rolls her eyes. “Please. Look, if you know what’s best, you’ll stay away from her.”

“Or what?”

April gets her scary smile, which Sterling has been on the receiving end of far too many times, but the sight of it now sends warm relief through her. 

“I help out Ms. Samuels in the office, which means that I have unfettered access to records, which means I could call up your poor excuse for parents in give or take 30 seconds and tell them that their son is an ingrate who hits on girls so far out of his league that it’s frankly embarrassing.”

The guy’s eyes grow wide, and he looks at Sterling for a second, who despite how terrible everything seemed a minute ago, can’t help grinning at him before lifting her hand in a wave. 

“Bye, now,” she says, a newfound confidence blooming from April's anger and also maybe a little bit the _so far_ _out of his league_ comment.

The guy looks at April one last time before scurrying off down the hall. Sterling starts laughing at his retreating form and is gratified when April joins in too, and for a second it seems like the weirdness and animosity of the last few years doesn't exist. She puts her hand on April’s shoulder and squeezes it lightly. 

“I freaking love you,” she says, still laughing a little, “that was amazing.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because April stiftens under her touch, shrugging off Sterling’s hand. 

“I would have done the same for anyone,” she says briskly, all traces of laughter gone, “don’t flatter yourself just because I don’t want that _asshole_ terrorizing anyone else.”

Sterling raises her eyebrows. April never swears. And it's easier to focus on that than the way her words still sting a little. 

“Thank you anyway,” she says brightly, then, boldness still lingering, “hey, it’s kind of nice when you don’t hate me, right?”

April’s eyes sharply turn to her, and Sterling sucks in a breath. 

“I don’t hate you,” April says and Sterling feels a brief sense of relief before, “you’re not worth the effort.”

Then she turns on her heel and walks down the hallway and Sterling kind of feels like she wants to cry. 

But for the rest of the week, the rest of the month, the rest of middle school, Creepy Guy doesn't so much as look at her, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why. So maybe Sterling is worth some kind of effort after all. 

The third time, her excuse is that she’s seventeen and horny and her and April are _finally_ talking again and she feels high off of it. 

Their most recent AP Lit assignment is to write a paper on a Shakespeare play of their choosing and April has gone with _Twelfth Night,_ which is not what Sterling would have thought for her.

“I would have pegged you for a _Macbeth_ girl,” Sterling teases as they walk out of class, because she can do that, she can just tease April now with no undercurrent of weirdness or sadness or hesitation. It’s amazing.

“Please,” April says, rolling her eyes so dramatically that Sterling giggles a little, “the real tragedy of _Macbeth_ is that such a smart capable woman is wasted on a wet rag of a man.”

Sterling snorts. “That’s what you got out of _Macbeth?”_

“Am I wrong?” 

Sterling should say yes, because, you know, _multiple murders_ , but she doesn’t. Instead she just smiles and tries to ignore the way that April has what Sterling has secretly dubbed her game face on, like she is ready to throw down over _Macbeth._ It should absolutely not do the things it does to Sterling that it is currently doing. 

“Besides,” April says, lowering her voice to a whisper, seemingly ignoring Sterling's inappropriate staring, “ _Twelfth Night_ has a delightful amount of lesbian subtext. It can be fully viewed as Olivia realizing why the only man she ever loved was not, in fact, a man, and what that implies about the constrictions of the era-”

“I love you.”

April’s eyebrows shoot to her forehead. Sterling could die. Maybe she will. Maybe the linoleum floor will swallow her up right now. Anything would be preferable to accidentally blurting out that she loves ( _loves_?!) someone who she spent a week making out with over a year ago, and has only been on speaking terms with for the past two weeks. 

“What?” April says, voice even lower than before. 

“I love _that_ ,” Sterling clarifies, aware that she’s blushing. God, she’s _blushing,_ like she’s an idiot teenager with a crush. Well, she _is_ an idiot teenager with a crush, but it still is so embarrassing she wants to melt into the floor. “Hey, did you ever see that movie with Amanda Bynes that was based on _Twelfth Night,_ what was it called? It’s a really good movie. Last year Blair and I spent a lot of time watching old teen movies and that was one of the better movies. It's a really funny movie, I think you would like it. _She’s the Man!_ That’s the movie.”

April just stares at her, mouth slowly curving into a smile that, God help her, has Sterling’s heart beating way faster than it should. 

“You said ‘movie,’ like, ten times.”

“Well, I just really love, um, cinema.”

“Sure. Cinema.”  
  
  


The fourth time, Sterling is ecstatic and recently eighteen, a full adult now, and she really doesn’t have an excuse except, like, _how could she not?_

“Twice?” April asks, that very specific smug look on her face that she always gets during sex, one that Sterling finds infuriatingly hot. 

“Don’t get too cocky about it,” Sterling says, and she’s sure that her words would be a lot more effective if she wasn’t sweating and panting and and oh, maybe if April’s fingers weren’t still literally _inside of her._

“You know what they say,” April drawls, moving her hand just enough to make Sterling take a deep shaky breath, “third time’s the charm.”

Sterling gasps, “you wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I certainly would,” April says, leaning down so her words are soft and dangerous against Sterling’s ear. Then, in a startling move, she swallows, body stiffening slightly, “I mean only, of course, if you want-”

And Sterling really has no choice but to kiss her then, and it’s sloppy and emotional and messy, because Christ, Sterling just came twice and is so overwhelmed with a sudden wave of fondness that she cannot be expected to be coordinated right now. 

“I want,” she tells April when she finally lets her go, “trust me, there is nothing I want more than - _oh God.”_

And it’s different this time, because April is smiling so gently down at her before kissing her mouth, her cheeks, her neck, her jaw, and the contrast of that sweetness with the way that April is absolutely fucking her senseless sends Sterling into sort of a tailspin. 

“Oh my God, April, oh my God, fuck, you’re killing me, Jesus - don’t stop I swear to god if you stop I will - holy shit _I love you,_ oh Jesus fuck, _April_.”

When Sterling can finally breathe again, neither of them bring up what Sterling may or may not have said in the throes of passion, which is probably good because April’s moving a thousand miles away in a few weeks anyway. 

But there’s a part of her, maybe it's the part that just had her third orgasm in 10 minutes (she is one hundred percent bragging about this to Blair later), and maybe it’s the part that has spent almost every day this summer doing things with April beyond just sex, driving and laughing and having whispered conversations about what they can do now that high school is over, but part of her wants April to bring it up. 

She imagines Aprils face, her specific loving sort of mockery, when she would say, “did you just say you loved me during sex?”

And Sterling would be a little embarrassed but mostly warm and soft and happy and she’d say, “yeah I did, what of it?”

And April would get all shy in the way that she gets sometimes only around Sterling and Sterling would say it again and again; she would tell April, “I love you, I love you, don’t for a second believe I’ll stop just because you’re going off to college.”

But neither of them bring it up and April does go off to college and Sterling cries into Blair’s arms the day she leaves and Blair kisses her forehead and says, “you really do love her, huh?”

And all Sterling can do is nod and cry some more and wish she had just said it.

The fifth time is the first time it’s not an accident. She’s 22 and part of her, as basic as it is, is really vibing with that one Taylor Swift song. 

“It’s like, I _am_ happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time, you know?” She says to April over their smoothies.

They’ve been hanging out just as friends for the first time in probably a decade, and it’s weirdly nice. There’s still that undercurrent of it all; the reality that if April looked in her a certain way or told her to take off her clothes, Sterling would, like, immediately go for it. But Sterling’s flight to fucking _Romania_ leaves in two days and April is only recently single and Sterling really isn’t sure she can handle the intense feeling and then separation of four years ago. 

So they do things like get smoothies and go canvassing and talk on Sterling’s porch until the sun sets and it ends up being exactly everything Sterling wants out of her last month in Georgia. 

April laughs, but concedes, “It _is_ a good song.”

“Thank you! Blair keeps making fun of me, but she’s a really good songwriter!”

“I do think it’s a little suspicious that she waited until after the 2016 election to get involved in politics, but nobody’s perfect.”

Sterling rolls her eyes but smiles. “ _You_ didn’t get involved in politics till 2020.”

April straightens, sets her shoulders like she’s ready for a fight and it makes Sterling smile even more.

“First of all, I was seventeen when I got into politics, Taylor was almost thirty. Secondly, I don’t have millions of idiot white women, who were _key_ in 2016, paying attention to everything I say! Trust me, if I had anything near that type of audience, I would-”

“You will.”

April stops mid sentence, closes her mouth so abruptly it’s almost funny. She tilts her head to look at Sterling. 

“I’ll what?”

“You’ll have that kind of audience someday. I can’t imagine a future in which the world isn’t paying attention to April Stevens.”

A shy smile slowly spreads across April’s face, and Sterling absently wonders if that smile will ever stop affecting her the way it does. 

“Sterling...” she starts, moving her hand across the table so it’s on top of Sterling’s.

“Yeah?” Sterling asks, breath coming out shorter. 

Then there’s an obnoxiously loud honk, and Blair pulls their parents’ Tesla up outside the smoothie place, one tire halfway on the curb. 

“Oh man, is it six already?” Sterling asks, trying to keep her tone light.

April checks her watch, because of course April is the kind of twenty-something with a _watch,_ and says, with a hint of disappointment, “it’s actually 6:15.”

Sterling has never been happier for her sister’s tendency to be late, for giving her an extra fifteen minutes of this. She stands up reluctantly and April follows. 

“So I guess this is…” she starts. 

April nods. “I guess it is.”

And, well, Sterling is about to leave the country; it would be weird to _not_ give April a hug. So she does, noting the surprised little breath April lets out. They stay there for maybe a little longer than two people who are determinedly just friends, only pulling apart when Blair honks the horn again. 

“Have a great time,” April says tightly, “I’ll miss you.”

Sterling feels a warmth down to her toes. It must show on her face because April hits her lightly on the arm. 

“Shut up, you’ll miss me too,” she says. 

Sterling nods. She squeezes April’s hand once more before reluctantly going off to the car. 

“Love you!” Sterling calls over her shoulder. 

She keeps looking for long enough to see April blink rapidly for a second, before turning a little red and clearing her throat. 

“Um, love you too,” she finally gets out. 

“Call me when you’re elected to congress,” Sterling says with a wink as she gets in the car, feeling on top of the world because _April fucking Stevens loves her._

The sixth time, Sterling is 25 and content and doesn’t have an excuse. She honestly wants an excuse, has spent the past month looking for any opportunity to say it.

She’s at April’s apartment, absently chatting with Blair on the phone, though they both know she’s just biding her time until April gets home. Sterling perches on the counter, looking at the tree outside the kitchen window, marveling in each color of the leaves, which have only started to change in these last few days of October. 

She can’t stop noticing things like that in the month and change she’s been back in Atlanta; small beautiful details like the bright green peeking through a city sidewalk; the rich taste of the dark chocolate covered almonds April keeps on a tall shelf; the specific warmth of waking up in clean sheets with another body next to hers.

That last one had happened this morning, and Sterling had let out a luxurious sigh, content to never move again, until April had gently nudged Sterling off of her so she could get out of bed.

“No. Stay,” Sterling had murmured. 

April had laughed lightly, sleep still in her throat, before leaning down and kissing Sterling softly on the cheek. 

“I have a job, you know.”

Sterling had shaken her head, burying it deeper in the pillows, and April had laughed again, running her hand lightly through Sterling's hair, which was still messy and tangled from the night before. 

“Stay as long as you want,” April had whispered, and Sterling had grinned against the pillow until April’s soft touch lulled her back to sleep. 

Now, she tries to pretend she hasn’t been looking at the clock for the last two hours, tries to quell the excited leap in her stomach when she hears a key in the lock. 

“You just like, fully gasped,” Blair says in her ear, “lemme guess, your giiiirlfriend came home? It’s cute y’all pretend you aren’t living together after dating for like a month, she should really start charging you for rent with how much- ”

“Okay, love you, bye,” Sterling says into the phone, before hanging up, smiling to herself. It’s not really worth the effort to pretend to be mad at her sister when they both know Blair’s one hundred percent right on this one. 

Sterling’s done pretending at this point, anyway. She shoves her phone into her pocket and goes to the front door, not caring at all how eager she looks. 

April opens the door with enough force that it almost hits Sterling in the face, but she jumps back just in time. April is wearing one of her fancy lawyer suits, and is holding a pile of mail like it has personally offended her and it’s enough to make Sterling lean on the open door, a dreamy smile spreading on her face. 

Sterling would like to think that an equally dreamy smile comes over April when she sees Sterling and it makes her buzz all the way down to her bare feet. 

“You’re still here,” April states, a warmth seeping through her words.

“You know me, just your classic freeloader.” She leans forward to kiss April on the cheek. “A really cute freeloader though.”

“Can’t argue with that,” April says with a smile, before flipping through her mail, voice losing some of its affection, “I swear to God, the money that campaigns spend on mailers…”

Her fingers stop on a thick postcard that just says the word ‘VOTE’ in alarmingly bright neon lettering. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Sterling looks at April’s eyes, sees a familiar glint of anger in there, and knows that April’s about to go off. 

“What’s up?” she chirps innocently, wondering if there is something wrong with her for how much she oddly enjoys what's coming next.

April scans the back of the postcard, eyes narrowing, before angrily setting down the rest of the mail on the side table so she can focus on the object of her fury. Sterling gently closes the door behind her.

“It’s inane,” April says, still brandishing the postcard furiously as she opts to pace around the living room.

“It’s... a postcard.”

“It’s a waste of money, of resources, it’s privileged performative democracy. People saying they are volunteering when they have never picked up a phone or knocked on a door in their entire lives but they pretend they're making a difference by writing me a useless scrap of paper. _Hey April, are you aware that this is the most important election of our lifetime?_ Hmm, let’s see. I have been out knocking doors every weekend since September but oh gee, I haven’t thought about it. They literally say that every four years, either life expectancy is running a little lower these days or every election doesn’t have to be the most important of our lifetimes to convince people to give a shit. And the back just says ‘Vote.’ As if anyone has been swayed by just the word vote when we could be having face to face conversations for actual candidates and policies, if only half these people weren’t lazy, entitled, idiotic-“

“I love you.”

April drops the postcard. 

“What?”

There’s still a lingering sharpness in her voice left over from her rant but it goes up at the end, all soft and hopeful, and Sterling finds herself in awe at everything that can fit into one syllable from April’s mouth. 

“I love you,” Sterling repeats confidently, walking over to where April stands and grabbing her by both hands, “I am fully, desperately, a thousand percent in love with you. And you like, obviously don’t have to say it back, but I just really needed you to know.”

“Oh,” April says shakily. 

Sterling runs her thumb over the inside of April’s wrist, before bringing it up to her lips to kiss it, smiling when April sighs a little. 

“Anyway, if you want to keep talking about performative democracy, don’t let me stop you.”

Something about that must snap April out of her head because suddenly her arms around Sterling’s neck and she’s kissing her with such an intensity that Sterling almost can’t breathe. She holds April's face in her hands and doesn’t say anything when she feels a tear fall on her thumb, just closes her eyes and breathes it all in. 

“I should say ‘I love you’ more often,” she says with a breathless little laugh.

April sniffs a little. “Hey, maybe I should talk about performative democracy more often.”

“Please do.”

April grins up at her and Sterling kisses her again, because she _can_ , whispers another, “I love you,” because she can do that too, words soft against April’s mouth like it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

Sterling gives her one last brief kiss, before letting go and quickly running to the desk in the corner. April eyes her quizzically as Sterling pulls out a pen and paper and brings it back to April. 

“I figured you would probably want to write a strongly worded letter back to the people who sent you the annoying postcard, so-”

“I love you too.”

“Oh.” Sterling suddenly can’t stand. She’s lucky the couch is close to her, so she can sink down onto it, looking up at April, who is smiling so bright and wide that Sterling can’t breathe again. “Really?”

April has the audacity to roll her eyes before joining Sterling on the couch. She kisses Sterling’s shoulder before looking her directly in the eye, her signature intensity making Sterling’s heart stutter.

“ _Really_?” she repeats, “Sterling, I’ve been in love with you since the third grade, you beautiful idiot.”

“Oh wow,” Sterling says dumbly, “that’s a long time.”

April laughs. “Only over half my life, but who's counting?”

Something in Sterling aches at that, in both a longing for the past, but also a joyful burning intensity for the future and it makes her reach her hand up to grab April’s collar, thumb stroking over her neck. 

“Guess we have a lot of lost time to make up for, huh?” she says with a grin, then she’s pulling April’s face toward her and her whole body follows and April’s laughing and Sterling could maybe stay on this couch with the solid weight of April above her, softly kissing her for the rest of her life.

“Does this mean,” April says against Sterling’s mouth, “that I don’t have to keep ignoring it when you say ‘I love you’ during sex?”

Sterling gasps, pulling away only for dramatic effect. 

“That was _years_ ago, I can’t believe - ”

“Sterling, what are you talking about, you said it literally last night.”

Sterling's eyebrows shoot up and she feels her face go warm. April giggles above her. 

“Oh shut up,” Sterling says, “how am I supposed to remember every little thing I say during sex? Especially when you’re so stupidly good at it.”

April grins. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Good,” Sterling says, kissing April again, embarrassment forgotten as she sighs into it, “because, you know, I love you.”

It’s the fourth time in five minutes, and maybe it’s the ninth or tenth or twentieth time ever, but Sterling can’t quite bring herself to care. She’s honestly, quite thrilled to lose count.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I was like, "I gotta take a break from writing before the election," but then my girlfriend went on a long rant about getting several postcards that all told her to vote for no one specifically and I was so very in love, thus this little fic was born. 
> 
> ALSO dipping my toe back into this world is a great excuse to remind all my pals that we have eight days left till the election and everything is terrible, and a way to tangibly help is to volunteer for some good old [dem down ballot races](https://www.mobilize.us/micheleknollforhd44/)!!! I'm obvi biased, but Pennsylvania is super important in several ways this year and they really are trying to suppress people's votes (aka why we need to flip the state house) so every phone call to get someone to drop off their ballot or go to the polls could really make a difference, everywhere from [my favorite state house race](https://www.mobilize.us/micheleknollforhd44/) to Biden/Harris. And you can do it from anywhere! ANYWAY, come phone bank with your pal paddingtonfan69, a bitch is stressed and a country is in turmoil!! Sign up at those links or message me on the [ol tumblr](https://paddingtonfan69.tumblr.com/) if you want to get involved!! Okay I'm done, gonna go be deeply anxious for several days!!


End file.
